


Cogito ergo sum

by FixaIdea



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 17:57:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5549966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FixaIdea/pseuds/FixaIdea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire should have known better than to invest in a humanoid companion-robot, he really should. </p><p>(A.k.a. the somewhat-Asimov-is AU someone technically asked for, but probably wasn't expecting.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cogito ergo sum

Grantaire stared at the thing morosely. It was completely, creepily lifelike, laid out on R’s cot, clad in plain, white cotton clothes.

Buying the fancy companion robot was a spur-of-the-moment decision Grantaire made when he was slightly tipsy and exceptionally lonely, and which he regretted instantly.

The worst part was, he mused as he flipped through the manual, that he was pretty wary of robots to begin with. The newer models were so detailed and so intricately programmed, the superficial beholder couldn’t tell them from a living, breathing person, and tricking himself like that was the last thing Grantaire needed.

Thing is, he was lonely a lot. Such is the life of an interstellar delivery man. He sometimes spent weeks all on his own. Being a social, extroverted, friendly person, this was as far from a dream-job as it got, but also the only one available for him right now. The company he worked for belonged to his parents – who paid him well, and even provided him with some extra allowance – on the condition that he ‘had his life together’, that is he had a steady job. Having fluked his original degree, for the moment he had to contend himself with courier service, which was slowly but surely killing him from the inside.

This was how one day, right before setting out on a month-long trip, he woke up with a gaping hole in his account and a man-sized parcel on his doorstep. Vigorously cursing his lack of impulse-control he loaded it in his ship with the rest of the cargo, resolute that he’ll just ignore it and return it to the manufacturer at the first given opportunity.

His resolve lasted exactly two days.

Even if his curiosity hasn’t been constantly nagging him, there was also the suffocating loneliness that slowly but surely crept back upon him.

So here he was, after carefully unpacking the blasted thing, finally attempting to turn it on. It was indisputably beautiful. It was made to look like a very young man, tall and slender, with long, flowing blond hair. Its eyes were closed, but according to the brochure they were supposedly blue. All in all he – _it_ , Grantaire corrected himself – looked positively regal. Grantaire, after having consulted an old index of French family names, led by the same trollish logic that makes people name their hamster ‘Sir Humphrey the III.’, decided to call it Enjolras.

According to the manual it could be turned on by pressing two hidden buttons in its throat. By essentially the same motion you would strangle a person, Grantaire noted with distaste. None the less he followed the instructions, and after a soft click, the thing’s chest began to rise and fall, and its eyes fluttered open.

It studied Grantaire’s bedroom for a while, its gaze finally settling on R himself. He ( _it_ ) propped itself up and peered up at him with a questioning, slightly lost look.

‘Hello.’

Grantaire was staring. If he hadn’t just turned it on, he would have sworn it was an actual human.

‘Hello?’ it repeated.

‘Oh. Uh. Hello, Enjolras. I’m Grantaire. Um. Make yourself at home.’

With that, he darted back into the control room, resuming his mantra of cursing himself. After a few moments it followed him on soft, bare feet.

***

The next few days were decidedly uncomfortable. At first Grantaire tried to ignore his new companion, such as it was, but it followed him everywhere, and as it looked and moved exactly like a human, Grantaire often found himself chatting at it. Which would have been fine, R often talked to the ship itself too, but this new robot of his sometimes answered. Not always, mostly it was content ( _not content, it can’t be content or discontent_ ) to just listen to R, but sometimes it would ask for clarification or even inject some small remark on its own.

He ( _it, dammit_ ) also proved to be quite useful. Apparently basic flight-control was programmed into him, and what he didn’t already know he picked up quickly enough. He was also a great help when it came to unloading cargo at stops. By the end of the first week Grantaire was beginning to make peace with him.

That was when he began to act strangely.

The signs were fairly subtle, and so innocent that even if R found them a bit odd, he didn’t dwell on them for long.

The first oddity was its curiosity. True, while robots usually came pre-programmed to be able to perform a number of tasks and stored a lot of data, the manufacturer obviously couldn’t foresee every possible situation, so the units were able to ask for clarification on the subject at hand and file it away for future reference. But after the timid silence of the first few days, Enjolras began to ask questions about pretty much everything. It became especially noticeable when R put on an old stellarpunk thriller, which took place back on Earth.

‘Why are they using such old spaceships?’

Grantaire looked up: his robot was sitting beside him, staring at the screen.

‘This is just some stellarpunk garbage.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It’s as if a modern writer was trying to write an Asimov novel. Not really sci-fi, because we’re over all that, but not accurate enough to be historical either.’

‘Who was this Asimov?’

‘A writer. More precisely, a sci-fi author, back when we all lived on Earth. He wrote about stuff like humanoid robots and interstellar travel, back when none of these things existed.’

He hoped this would be enough, but it only prompted Enjolras to ask how come humanity has left its home planet, and how did those early years of exploration go. Thriller forgotten, Grantaire found himself telling him about not only the Exploration Era, but of the three thousand years of human history that came before. When even all this couldn’t satisfy Enjolras, he directed him towards his library.

It was a vast collection, as Grantaire was easily bored, and always up for learning random trivia. He had downloaded books on every subject imaginable from medical texts (courtesy of his friend Joly) to mechanical (which he needed for his ship) and books on philosophy (which he mostly used to sound posh and cultured) to all sorts of mythology, which were his favourites.

From the way Enjolras buried himself in this new mine of knowledge Grantaire thought he’d never resurface. From then on, unless he was helping out he was never seen without a book.

The next unusual thing was so small Grantaire almost missed it. Nursing a mug of grog, meaning to put on a film again, he wandered into what he (somewhat pompously) called the living room, and plopped down beside Enjolras, who was curled up on the couch, his nose in one of his books, wrapped in the cover from the spare cot.

Grantaire fumbled with the player – and paused. He took a good look at the robot.

‘Why do you need that? Is you heating failing?’

The other raised a fair brow.

‘No, my systems are working just fine.’

‘Then why do you need to cover yourself?’

That visibly gave Enjolras a pause.

‘It’s soft. And warm. I don’t need it to function, but I prefer its presence.’

‘So you just. You just like it.’

‘I suppose’ Enjolras murmured, turning back to his book.

‘I didn’t know robots can do that.’

‘Aren’t they supposed to?’

‘No. I mean, you guys are just machines, programmed to follow orders and maybe react to the world to protect yourselves. You aren’t supposed to have opinions. I mean, you aren’t programmed to. Not any more than, say, a toaster.’

When he looked back at Enjolras he knew he made a mistake. He’s put down his book and was staring at him, fixed, unwavering and _angry_.

Grantaire shook his head and got up, scurrying back to the control room. He was imagining things, he had to be. It was just a dignified electric doll, it couldn’t be angry. Grantaire has spent almost two whole weeks unintentionally anthropomorphising it, treating it like a person, talking to it… He was lonely and he was seeing things, that was it. It had to be.

It wasn’t. Next time Grantaire told Enjolras to move a parcel he refused.

They kept staring at each other for almost a whole minute, but as the parcel had to be delivered, Grantaire picked it up himself in the end.

It was (or at least it felt like) the longest delivery of his life. What the hell was up with his robot? Was it malfunctioning? Was it out of control and dangerous? Was it some morbid prank of the manufacturer?

For a moment he seriously contemplated just abandoning his ship, robot and all, and running away. Even when his feet, pretty much on autopilot, have brought him back to the ship, he was still calculating the price of a possible fare back home, or at least to Joly, who lived near enough (at least on a planetary scale).

Enjolras was waiting for him in the control room, fair features hard, arms crossed.

‘So’ Grantaire began, hoping against all hope his voice wasn’t wavering ‘What was that about?’

‘I’m not a thing.’

‘Uh… You kind of are, though? You’re a machine and all…’

‘And you? What are you? A machine made of protein and fat. You are ruled by series of commands from your brain, electric stimuli transmitted by nerves, and hormones. You whole setup, software and hardware updates and patches are coded in a single helical molecule. My body is plastic, my nerves are silicone, but aside from that, how are we so different?’

Grantaire spluttered. He just wasn’t prepared for this. He was just a semi-alcoholic space postman, he wasn’t fit to lead philosophical arguments with a fancy doll that somehow thought itself sentient.

…Which of course was redundant, and therefore a moot point… If it was thinking anything, it – he – had to be, actually, sentient.

‘But humans have…’ he almost said ‘a soul’ but stopped himself just in time. It would be beyond hypocritical to use something he didn’t believe in as an argument ‘…emotions.’

‘Those are when… when your chest feels heavy when you don’t like something? Or when something presses behind your eyes when you don’t agree with something?’ said Enjolras. Grantaire noticed that his hands, which he was trying to hide in the crook of his arms, were trembling.

Well, well. Him turning out to be sentient was a lot better than him malfunctioning and being completely out of control, but also a lot more terrifying.

‘Um. Yeah. That’s what they are, I guess.’

‘If I am a person, and I am, then why am I here? What decides that I should serve you?’

‘Huh? Nothing! I mean, nothing decided that! Like I said, robots aren’t meant to be sentient, you’re the first one I’ve ever even heard of, let alone met! I set out to buy a humanoid toy so I could pretend I wasn’t alone, I didn’t mean to buy a-a slave!’ Grantaire was properly freaking out now.

‘Are you… are you experiencing a malfunction? Your colour isn’t right.’

‘Malfunction?! I’m flipping shit is what I’m doing! We should fucking sue the fucking company that sold you! I didn’t sing up for this, I never wanted…’

‘Grantaire, breathe.’

‘Breathe, he says! I’m standing here with a sentient robot and he’s telling me to breathe! I can’t even…’

The world went black.

***

When Grantaire came around, he found himself on the ratty sofa in the ‘living room’, Enjolras perched by his feet, looking worried.

‘Ah, you’re up’ he sighed as R struggled up into a sitting position ‘I didn’t mean to cause you harm. I’m sorry.’

‘Nah, not your fault’ said Grantaire, rubbing the back of his neck ‘You didn’t ask for any of this either. I just… I’ve never seen anyone like you before. I couldn’t even imagine I ever would. Ah, and by the way, I’m sorry about the way I treated you before.’

‘It’s all right. You didn’t know.’

Grantaire huffed. He hoped Enjolras was different enough from a regular human to actually mean this and not hold a grudge. Frantically searching for something to say, he blurted out:

‘So, what else do you like?’

‘Come again?’

‘You said you like soft, warm things – and what else?’

‘Ah… history. I especially liked the period just before the Exploration Era – the fall of the Dominion. Although I find it frustrating that the sources are often contradictory and you can’t tell which one is right.’

‘Yeah, that’s a bummer. Same with philosophy – while you read a certain work, it seems to make sense all nicely, until you read the next book, by a different author, and it completely contradicts the former, but also seems to make sense on its own.’

‘But in history something has, at a given point in time, objectively happened’ Enjolras argued ‘while philosophy… if I understand correctly, it’s just a collection of pointers to help one make up one’s own mind.’

‘And what’s your stance?’ Grantaire asked, grinning.

‘I’m holding out’ Enjolras answered, very seriously.

Grantaire itched a bit closer.

‘Do you have any memories from before I turned you on?’

Enjolras turned away, and stared off into the distance. He stayed like that for a while – Grantaire was beginning to think he wasn’t going to answer at all. But finally he stirred and looked down.

‘Not really. Nothing coherent. Lights. Pain. Voices above and around me. Your bedroom ceiling is my first clear memory.’

‘Oh. I’m… I’m sorry. And you have been holed up in my ship ever since. Not much of a life.’

Enjolras turned back to him.

‘Did you give me my name, or did it come from the company?’

‘I picked it. You can change it, of course.’

Enjolras shook his head.

‘I would change it if it came from the company. If it’s yours, I’ll wear it. Does it mean something?’

‘It must, most names do. I picked it because it’s French, and my family is of French origins – but I don’t really speak the old language anymore. I just liked how it sounded.’

‘Do I get a family name too?’

‘Ah, it _is_ a family name. So is Grantaire, by the way. I’m Nicolas Grantaire. Um. Nice to meet you.’

Enjolras’ lips curled up a bit at that.

‘Nice to meet you too.’

Led by a sudden idea Grantaire stood and held out his hand. Enjolras eyed it warily for a moment before taking it and standing up also.

‘Here’ Grantaire said ‘I’d like to try something. You’ll probably like it, but if not, just tell me and I’ll stop, OK?’

‘Alright. What do you have in mind?’

Grantaire carefully stepped closer, and slipped an arm around Enjolras’ waist and shoulder. When he didn’t pull away, he slowly completed the hug. For a second, Enjolras just stood there, arms held out by his side, but before Grantaire could pull away he carefully copied his motions. It was stiff, tense and awkward at first, but as Grantaire began to stroke his companion’s back he could feel the artificial muscles relaxing under his hands. Before long, Enjolras was leaning into him, face hidden in the crook of his neck.

The work the craftsmen put into him was remarkable – he was soft to the touch and as warm as a real human. His chest was rising and falling with breaths he didn’t really need to function and he even had an artificial heartbeat. Grantaire frowned – he had no illusions about what such a lifelike robot could (and would) be used as. He was glad his smart new friend didn’t end up as someone’s fancy blow-up-doll.

He was broken out of his reverie by Enjolras’ trembling.

‘Hey, hey… shh, what’s wrong?’ he asked, attempting to pull away, but Enjolras only wrapped his arms around him even tighter.

‘No… no, don’t go! This is… it’s…’

‘Good?’

‘Yes. Very good.’ he was trembling even harder now. Grantaire frowned. He’s also been trembling when he’d confronted him earlier, when he was angry and upset. But apparently it was a good thing now?

Well, of course. He couldn’t cry, he couldn’t blush, even his breathing kept its steady rhythm no matter what – this had to be how he reacted to any kind of strong emotion.

‘Shush, I’ve got you my friend.’

‘We’re friends?’

‘If you want to.’

At that Enjolras stepped back to look at him properly.

‘Yes, I want to.’

***

Two weeks later Grantaire, finished with his latest round, was ready to return home, with his new friend in tow. He’d already landed the ship and was preparing to disembark. Enjolras, now clad in proper, everyday clothes they bought in one of the ports on the way, was looming beside him, looking fairly nervous.

Grantaire looked up at him.

‘Remember the story?’

‘I’m a hitchhiker who suffered a tragic accident and who now has amnesia.’ he repeated dutifully.

‘Splendid. Now come, the Big Bad Real World is waiting!’

‘But R… Are you sure your parents will let me stay with you?’

‘As long as I have a job, with them or somewhere else, they don’t care what I do or who I employ, as long as I do it from my own pocket. Speaking of which… will the sum of my allowance do for wages? You can pay for the electricity you use and buy new clothes if you want.’

‘That’s fair. But Grantaire…?’

‘Yes?’

‘Why do I need this?’ Enjolras asked, holding up a dirty old towel Grantaire pressed into his hands earlier.

‘Damned if I know, hitchhikers always carry them around. Come, let’s go!’

Taking his friend by the hand he stepped off of the ship and into the bustling port. Enjolras may be a scientific miracle, but he also seemed to be a nice, kind person, if a little distant at times. There was a whole world out there for him to explore, and he decided to do it by Grantaire’s side.

Grantaire smiled. For the first time in years he had something to look forward to.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, that's a Hitchhikers' Guide joke. I regret noting.


End file.
